


The Teddy Bear

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3562448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early in their relationship, Steed and Emma go out to a county fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Teddy Bear

Steed lowered the gun barrel, leveling it. He felt the weight of the gun, the butt pressing into his shoulder, the light pressure of the trigger. He closed one eye, target in sight. He waited. Breath slowed. Noise dissipated. He followed the target’s movement, carefully, no rush. He squeezed the trigger.

“Bullseye!” said the man and presented Steed with a ludicrously large teddy bear.

“For you, Mrs. Peel,” he said, turning on his heel to his date.

Emma Peel smiled – an absurd, charming little smile - and took the bear. 

“My hero. What will you do for your next trick?”

“Consume my weight in candied apples.” He offered her his arm.

The town fair was a good idea, and Steed was grateful to her for suggesting it. He hadn’t wanted to go home, not yet. If they went home, he would have to leave her and he didn’t want to leave her. Instead they could wander, and talk, and enjoy the sights and sounds of an English village at play, away from the noisy thoroughfares of London. Away also from the chances of his phone ringing to send him off on assignment.

The fair was in full swing. Small children ran by unattended. Teenagers flirted on the ferris wheel. Elderly couples and tired parents stood at the food stands; grown men shot little metal ducks with pellet guns in an effort to impress beautiful women. Steed felt like a teenager showing off. He glanced at Emma Peel as she stepped aside to allow a horde of small children to run by. She held the teddy bear clasped to her side, a little girl with a brand new toy.

They had known each other for a few weeks now, but this was only their third proper outing. Steed’s profession interfered with more pleasurable pursuits; he’d been forced into another sojourn to Jamaica for a week the day after he first took her out. When he returned, he learned from the Ministry watchdogs that she had phoned the number he’d given her and was at least moderately interested in working for the Ministry. The fact pleased him. What pleased him less was the report that she’d already impressed the powers that be and that they were considering who best to pair her with, once her basic training had lapsed. He had not considered that she might be paired with anyone.

Of course, he should have expected it. He already had a partner, and Cathy Gale was irreplaceable. But the thought of Emma Peel working with another agent, closely, personally, gave him an unattractive stab of jealousy he did not expect. He barely knew her, after all. A few dates and conversations were hardly grounds for jealousy in any capacity. And yet …

She released his arm to run up to the candy apple booth, her auburn hair bobbing, the teddy still clasped to her side. A beautiful and sophisticated woman, a ruthless CEO, a brilliant scientist and respected mathematician, yet she was capable of behaving like a child at the fun fair. That charmed him as much as the thousand other things he’d noticed about her – her willingness to fight him when she disagreed, her total disregard for what others thought of her; her coolness, which concealed a fiery temper that had him indulging in very ungentlemanly imaginings late at night. She was, in every respect, a unique and fascinating woman. He followed her, swinging his umbrella.

There was a small crowd at the apple stand when he got there, dividing her from him. Two young men, barely out of their teens, had pushed through to stand next to her.

“Nice teddy,” said one.

Emma cast a cool glance at the pair. “Thank you.”

“You won him all by yourself?” The young fellow leaned forward, his handsome face pulled into a smile. “Little girl, all alone at the fair?”

Emma ignored him, but the young man was evidently not taking the hint.

“The apple’s on me,” he said.

“That’s quite all right,” said Mrs. Peel.

“No, really. Then we can go on a ride on the ferris wheel. I’d like to take you for a spin or two.”

The suggestion in his voice was obvious. Steed’s grip tightened on his umbrella.

She turned her head, a slight smile on her lovely mouth. “No, thank you.”

There was more withering deprecation in those three syllables than if she’d gone into an entire, offended speech. A statement on the young man’s age, his qualities, his masculinity, his very existence was implicit in her tone. The young man seemed to know it too, for he looked suddenly angry. Steed took the opportunity of a break in the crowd to push his way through and stand beside her. 

The boy snorted his disgust, made a comment about ‘prudish types’ and walked off with his friend. Emma laughed.

“You probably gave him a complex,” said Steed, suppressing his pleasure at the whole scene.

“Oh, I do hope so.”

They walked on, eating their apples in companionable silence. The wind picked up a little, a dull breeze that spoke of oncoming weather. Steed looked down at her free hand, swaying by her side. That electrical tension he’d identified between them from the very start was only increasing in power and intensity. He wondered what would happen if they ever got too close. He very much wanted to find out.

They came out of the fair proper and into a small park. They were on a path by a man-made pond, ducks quacking contentedly down in the water.

Emma stopped walking and looked down into the quiet, undisturbed pond, bordered by a white railing.

“Why do you do what you do?” she asked finally. 

“I might ask the same of you.”

She shook the remains of her apple at him. “That’s a dodge, John Steed.”

"Yes, it is.” He took a breath. “Patriotism, I suppose.”

“Heroism?”

“There’s an old saying: there are no living heroes. The truth is I like my work. I’m not really cut out for anything else. I couldn’t sit behind a desk; I’d wither up and die.”

“So you prefer to risk your life for Queen and Country?”

“Can you think of any greater thrill?”

She did not respond to that. She tossed the remainder of her apple away.

“What do you think he looks like?” she asked, setting the teddy bear on the railing.

“An Egbert,” he replied.

Mrs. Peel curled her nose. “Absolutely not.”

“If you call him Mr. Cuddles, I’ll leave you here.”

She laughed. “I could just name him John Steed, in fond memory. But he’ll need a bowler and brolly.”

“We could go back to the gun booth and see if they have any in stock.”

She turned her head, regarding the bear’s slightly off-center eyes and round black nose. Steed regarded her.

“Reginald,” she said, finally. “He’s a Reginald.”

“I have never met a teddy bear named Reginald.” He shook the bear’s paw. “Delighted. He looks a bit liverish, don’t you think? Not getting enough exercise, old boy. Get out in the sun, do you some good.”

“Like you?” She smiled at the bear. “How was Jamaica, Steed? Catch any nefarious criminals?

“Naturally. Also some delicious cuba libres.”

“Delicious blondes too?”

“Chivalry does not permit, my dear.” He poked at Reginald’s nose. “I'll caution you against women right now, my friend. Dangerous, nosy creatures.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.”

“Here I’ve brought you to this lovely fun fair, after a rather spectacular dinner, and won you Reginald to boot, and you say I’m no fun. What do you want from me, Mrs. Peel?”

She tossed her hair. “Oh, the usual: danger, excitement, daring escapes, diabolical masterminds, a knight on a white horse … ”

"Will you settle for a Steed in a grey check suit?”

“I think I could.” Her eyes met his.

Now there were eyes to be lost in. Big, brown, slightly almond-shaped, penetrating in their intelligence, disarming in their gentleness. He was so lost in them, in fact, that he did not process what she said until they were moving on, down the walkway by the pond. The moment, if moment it was, had been lost.

Steed ran over in his mind the women he had known in a long and delightful life. Charming women, beautiful women, women of great intellect and women of no intellect at all. Some had sped out of his life so quickly they had left only fleeting impressions. Some, like Cathy Gale, challenged him where no others would. He could have fallen for Cathy, if she ever let her guard down long enough to let him get close.

Now there was Emma Peel. When he met her, he imagined her a brief and tempestuous fling, a few weeks or months at the outside, before she grew bored with him or he with her and they parted amicably. Then he chose to invite her into his world, offering her a challenge he hoped and feared she would accept. She accepted it, and he was faced with a disturbing desire to keep her in his life for much longer than he originally imagined.

Tonight was the first night she appeared unguarded, though. She seemed to trust him more, enough to show that playful side concealed beneath the woman-of-the-world exterior. If she’d tried she could not have charmed him more.

Steed smiled privately. Why fight it? Why not just enjoy it? He walked on beside her, entirely unaware of the increasing wind and the clouds above. 

The rain, when it came, came quickly and suddenly. They were a good distance from the car – too far to run back without being thoroughly soaked. Steed put up his umbrella and they ran for cover beneath a nearby bridge, spanning over the path and pond. There they paused, breathless, wet, laughing.

Her makeup ran slightly and Steed offered his handkerchief to clear it from her eyes. He was close enough to her to see the freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks, and to smell the warm floral scent of her perfume. Her hair was a damp mess around her laughing face. She was more beautiful in that state than when she was perfectly perfectly coiffed. Steed pushed her hair back from her face.

The die was cast, without him even intending it. Dark eyes looked into his as he let his fingers trail along her jaw and chin. He waited for her to push him away or tell him to go on. She only looked at him, breath slowing and her laughing eyes turning to something far more alluring. He leaned towards her. For a moment she seemed to balk. Then she smiled and closed the gap between them.

The kiss was brief and chaste and powerfully erotic. He drew away desperate for more, equally desperate not to ruin his chances by assuming what she wanted. Then he saw the glinting desire in her eyes, either a mirror of his own, or hers entirely. Her arms came around him and their lips locked together again, this time in a far deeper, hotter embrace. She kissed him, aggressively, powerfully, her mouth opening on his, giving him access to her tongue. She was in total control, which he happily ceded to her.

She tasted sweetly of the candy apple, but there was more beneath that, a delicious flavor all her own. Her body pressed against him such that he could feel the lithe, powerful form beneath layers of clothing. Her fingers were at the back of his head, stroking his hairline. When her nails brushed the tiny hairs on the back of his neck, a powerful jolt surged through him and he emitted an involuntary little growl that surprised him as much as it amused her. She laughed against his lips.

“Why, Steed,” she said, drawing away just a bit. The tease in her voice was equally arousing and infuriating.

“You’re not going to get everything your own way,” he said.

He pulled her back into the embrace, asserting himself for the moment. She seemed to enjoy that too. He pressed his fingers into the soft spot just beneath her ear and heard a soft, involuntary whimper in her throat. Her hands slid across his shoulders – he could feel their strength even though his heavy coat, clasping him to her. Wanting him. Emma Peel wanted him. He buried his hands in her wet hair, holding her head.

Electricity. Heat. Passion. So cool, so sophisticated, and beneath it so wild. She fought him with her mouth, her lips, her tongue, letting him come close but no closer, trying to maintain her power. He’d never been kissed the way that she kissed him, with such burning urgency, such demand to dominate and be dominated. A will to match his, an open challenge. It was wonderful, it was intense, and it ended far too soon.

They looked at each other, the heat still hovering between them.

“No greater thrill, Steed?” she said, the same delicious tease in her voice, but characterized by a breathlessness that bespoke her own arousal.

“I might be able to come up with one or two better,” he replied.

“You must tell me about them sometime.”

Steed had a brief vision of making love to her, right there beneath the bridge, damning all his usual concern for comfort, seduction, warmth. He wanted her as he never wanted anyone. And he could see, as perfectly as if he was in her head, that the feeling was very mutual. 

“The rain’s slowed,” he said, trying to remain civilized.

She nodded. “And it is very late. Far past Reginald’s bedtime.”

“Must not keep Reginald awake, then, must we?”

He picked up his umbrella from where he’d let it fall. She picked up Reginald. Huddling underneath the umbrella, they made a quick dash for the fairgrounds and beyond that, the Bentley.

The rain had stopped by the time they arrived back at Emma’s building. He climbed out of the car and opened the door for her, as he always, handing her out onto the pavement.

“Good night, Steed,” she said.

“Good night, Mrs. Peel.”

He kissed her, chaste again, gripping her by one shoulder. He felt her tongue brush his lips and then retreat. Another challenge that he would let pass, for now. 

“You wouldn’t happen to need help with the lift, would you?” he asked.

“I think I can manage. I’ve got Reginald.”

Her fingers brushed the palm of his hand as she turned to enter the building.

Steed got back into the Bentley and drove home, reliving the kiss beneath the bridge over and over again. He fancied he could still taste her. As he got into bed that night, alone, he considered that he’d never been so thoroughly bewitched by a woman. Her kisses barely satiated him – he wanted more, and he wanted it from her. He thought of her, alone in her bed, and him, alone in his own. No, she was not alone. She had Reginald, after all.

Steed rolled over, hugging his own pillow. He realized that he was perhaps the first man to ever be jealous of a teddy bear.


End file.
